Letters to the editor

Time for the truth

Since the war began in Iraq, 488 soldiers have died. Equally disturbing, more than 9,000 have been evacuated due to serious illness or war wounds.

When the Defense Department was asked by a U.S. senator for a breakdown of the numbers, it waited six weeks to respond.

Officials' response was that at this time they did not have the numbers. We have now spent more than three times as long looking for weapons of mass destruction as the U.N. did and all we have found are all we have to show are documents detailing plans for future programs.

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This administration has withheld information from Americans and relied on intelligence that was either inaccurate or completely wrong to justify a war that has killed and wounded far to many of or soldiers.

We will be in Iraq for years to come and the price in both dollars and American lives is far too great to leave to George Bush. Americans must demand the truth and in November put someone else in the White House that can give Americans truthful answers.

We are not any safer now than before Saddam was captured and probably at much greater danger than we were before the war. Saddam was never a threat to America. He was not plotting with terrorists to attack America and it's time we knew the truth.

Anthony CassFairplay

Insurance for a cervine following

To the editor:

On the same day I learned from a friend that a deer had run into her car while out driving, I also read that Bob Maginnis had suffered a similar fate.

My friend, however, does not have insurance to repair her car and she was lamenting what to do. Well, I have a suggestion that may not help this time, but if implemented most certainly will the next time a deer runs into her or anybody else.

Let's get the Department of Natural Resources to require deer to have insurance like the rest of us.

After all, we have of a lot of accidents involving deer every year. None of those accidents are caused by the motorist running into the woods to hit the deer.

In every instance it is the deer that ran out of the woods and onto the highway, into the motor vehicle or into the path of a motor vehicle whose operator was just minding his own business when the deer caused the accident.

Sometimes the animal is killed or injured. But in some instances they just cause the accident, then leave the scene leaving the stunned, sometimes injured, driver to deal with the mess.

But if the deer had insurance, maybe a group plan, the poor innocent motorist wouldn't be left holding the bag. And if the bucks have trouble coming up with the doe or the doe have trouble coming up with the bucks to pay for this insurance, we will just have to take it out of their hide!

Or better still, maybe some of those animal rights activists, like Norm Phelps of Funkstown, program coordinator for the Fund for Animals, will form an animal responsibilities association and get other activists to collect money to pay the premiums.

After all, my ol' pappy always told me, "Son, with rights come responsibilities" and it is about time the deer take responsibility for the havoc they create with their careless behavior.